


The Other People

by Etnoe



Category: Gunnerkrigg Court
Genre: Interspecies Romance, M/M, Missing Scene, Other, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:30:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2142414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/pseuds/Etnoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the instant of coming into contact with Coyote's Tooth, everything changed for Shadow. But though his new state is utterly bizarre and different, strangely, it's not completely unfamiliar. There are the old stories of the shadow people...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other People

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BatchSan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatchSan/gifts).



> Set during and after Chapter 35: "Parley and Smitty are in This One".
> 
> * * *

The shadow people climb spaces: The less light there is, the more spaces there are to climb down into.

Kat had loved hearing about that, back when Shadow had been learning how to speak to her and the others, when she had been Princess Kat (haha). She'd said it gave her a lot to think about when it came to the characteristics of light and the perceptive range of beings at molecular level and the interactions and _potential_ interactions between light and biological matter in circumstances where blah blah buhbloop incomprehensible words.

Shadow was a shadow person like all the others (well, aside from his choice of friends). When poor Robot kept asking and asking if Shadow was okay even when he'd been hurt, Shadow climbed in the direction of his voice to reassure him. He moved before he thought about it because Robot was in trouble, and because of course he knew how to move -- except not. His own body and the world it was suddenly fighting against were questions to him, the kind that Kat asked when she made talking, feeling, and moving into incredible things made up of a whole lot of different parts that she could try to measure and mimic.

Spaces _pulled at him_. They climbed him back even as he was doing the climbing, something invisible pressing all along the arm he moved, as forceful as the slide of the sniggering blade had been, and it didn't stop.

That wasn't supposed to happen anywhere except in secret places deep, deep within the Forest. That was a story! He'd never met anyone who'd actually found shadow air and learned how to stand upright and apart, even though it was one of those stories pretty much everyone knew in the Forest, especially shadow people. But that story was the only thing he could think of that brought familiarity to this trembling strangeness in moving.

He did still manage to move, though. Just one arm, to stretch a hand up to Robot's face. Not far ... he could still do it. Robot was right over there, and everyone else was freaking out too much to be reassuring. Why did he need to climb, anyway? He should be part of Robot's own shadows! He should be feeling the ringing vibration of that metal body attached to his bottom half and slipping down to meet it ... he didn't even know what shadow he was part of right now.

Coyote's tooth laughed.

Even Robot didn't feel like he ought too - it was like his surface was stone, dense and still. The vibrations weren't there the way they ought to be ... but that was probably the fault of Shadow's own fingers, bent funny and getting in their own way, feeling as strange as every other part of him. He was getting the idea that he needed even more recalibrating than Robot did, and Robot was _in pieces_.

It wasn't Kat who stood over him and moved him so his body would work better, but Annie. She came to kneel beside him as Robot and Kat left, the first thing she did, slowly, talking to him although he felt too weird to talk back, was to sit him up.

Just up.

Just him.

Not up a wall, a crack, a table leg, an anything. Up, in the same easy way his form would slide down one of the minute spaces left where light had rested. Up, like the world moved to present itself for him in a different way.

"I imagine the feeling is strange? Just stay like this and get yourself used to it, Shadow. If it seems strange to me, surely it must be much more so for you! You're really sure you're all right?"

He could slide his hands on to her arms where they anchored him like a shadow would - the movement fast at first, and then shaking and slow when he tried to think about how he was doing it. Annie made soothing noises, which might have been words that he couldn't pick out. He hung on to her and stared at himself. Legs - sure, he'd mimicked legs before, though he almost always melted the bottom part of him solidly into other shadows. _Toes!_ When had that happened?

He heard the _bip_ of Parley's teleporting, and Annie brightened up as she looked around. "I'm glad you came back! Do either of you have a sweet? Anything to eat at all, really." She turned to Shadow with a smile. "A pomegranate might be appropriate!"

 _Like the story you told that one time?_ Shadow said wispily. Arranged the way he was, there was only her hand and parts of the floor to vibrate against, and the words came out in a whisper without him being able to help it.

"Carver, you gotta-- Help him, all right, be serious." Parley pleaded as she stared at Shadow gaping at them and down at himself.

"Of course," Annie said, very serious, and then sounded a little happier when she said, "Oh, yes, that's exactly what I had in mind! Thank you. I promise this makes sense. Just don't ... think about it too logically. It gets in the way sometimes."

From over by the wall, Renard snorted. "I think you're on the right track, child."

She unwrapped and dropped the wrapper. Shadow's attention fell down to meet it, diving into another whole new different angle of the way the world presented itself. He was wobbling and couldn't help it. He slumped.

Annie coaxed him back up and placed a hand on his chest to keep him in position. The smile she wore didn't look entirely familiar: It was steady and gentle, like she knew nothing was going to get in the way of her being kind to him. It made it feel like she knew what she was doing, Shadow thought, and then he felt like she probably did. Annie had clever instincts and she was always ready to help. She was his friend, since that time when she'd helped him go home to the Forest, and had introduced him and Robot, and whatever else had changed, that never had.

"Think about this." She held up the sweet, gleaming yellow, ordinary. "About what it's like and what your body is doing with it because of what it's like. I think you'll like it! Now, swallow..." 

He wobbled trying to get closer, so he let her move the sweet towards him instead. She pressed it to his mouth, and it was terrible, and like awesome fizzy magic, and sticky. It clung to his face when Annie moved her hand away

Andrew came to crouch beside Shadow. "You have to take it inside. Have you seen Annie and Kat eat? Do that. It's like your mouth is a crack in a wall, and that needs to go inside like you would when it's too light everywhere else."

Annie tipped her head towards Andrew and raised her eyebrows, making a little fun of the elder brother tone of his voice. Shadow smiled back, a small one so that the sweet wouldn't dislodge, though he liked Andrew's approach to the situation as much as he did hers. He needed to feel like he could still smile.

His mouth was a crack and he was a wall ... a tree, a person like all the people of the Forest and the Court that _had_ shadows... It could go inside him, because, well, he had an inside.

What happened with his face then was probably eating, because it wasn't exploding, and Andrew said, "There you go." It felt worse! It felt better!

"Bargh?" Shadow blurted, and the sweet fell out. His mouth snapped after it on its own, but he couldn't catch it. "Sss w-weird!"

"You shouldn't think about it too much either, Shadow," Annie said. "Just, ah, try to enjoy it? I hope you like the taste! If you can taste."

It felt right. He'd never in his whole life eaten before, and he didn't know if a single one of his people had. It still felt right.

But wobbly too, like everything had since the knife slipped under him.

"Yeah, I..." He shrugged. She said they should try it again, because she really thought it would -- Shadow was already nodding -- because it would help, Annie finished. He didn't know why, exactly, but he had to try it again. And he could feel it doing something, too, the more they let him taste and swallow things they had in their pockets and bags, the more he tried to have teeth and tongues like most of the Other People - everyone who wasn't a shadow person - used to eat stuff. Annie had guessed right.

"So this is ... Argh. S'like pom--pomegranate seeds, and Persephone?" Shadow asked Annie. "Going to another world or a part of the world you never knew about, and then you have to change to live there?" It didn't need to be a question - he knew that was what was happening as he said it, with his voice shaking deep down. He looked at where it was coming from, getting stronger and louder. His voice didn't only come from vibrating against the floor or Annie's hand now; he was making it against parts of himself, inside.

"That's right. Eating struck me as something that could help your body get used to being - well, three-dimensional instead of two-dimensional. It's like those stories about the shadow air, when it thickens you, you know?"

"What if I want to go back to how I was!" he said, and Annie started back, shocked, making Andrew move to catch her. They all gaped at each other.

"Except ... I don't think I want to..."

Everyone made a noise - Shadow giving a little gasp at the realisation, staring at himself again ( **toes** ), Annie, Andrew, and Renard letting out deep breaths, and Parley letting out a sharp bark of a laugh (not that it sounded at all happy). "Oh, thank goodness," Annie said. "I didn't even think of that. Anything a tool of Coyote's has done would be so hard to undo that I didn't even try..." She looked at him for another long while. "Oh, Shadow." She took one of his hands between both of hers. "I suppose there's no going back for you."

"Do hands feel ... happy?"

"That's probably warmth."

"Are you cold, kid?" Parley strode over. It looked like she wanted to be determined now, and he tried to put on an expression that wouldn't upset her again. "I think we should see the size of you. Can I help you stand up?"

All three of the humans helped him with it, and though it felt strange, it was funny how pleased all of them were when he was on his feet. He kept staring at the feet - flat on the ground, where they belonged, without the rest of him being anywhere near the ground - even when Parley started talking again, watching himself and the way everyone's shadows fell on him without making up part of him.

"There! Now I can get the size of you and get you some clothes! --Oh, damn, you're tiny, nothing me or Andrew has got is going to fit you anyway."

"Clothes? I'll be like Robot! And you guys," Shadow added hastily. All the humans wore clothes, and some animals like fairies and tree people did too. None of the other robots did. None of the other shadow people did. It would be the two of them who were strange that way.

He needed that. Shadow people were supposed to need a lot more people than one to feel close to, and to be similar to, before they felt at home - but relief made him warm(?) throughout the thickness of himself, and he knew he needed just that. Him and Robot.

Of course, just like the knife had cut through Robot's body, it had cut through his clothes... "Do you think you can get Robot a jumper too? He doesn't get cold or anything, but he likes the one he had a lot. If it takes Kat a while to fix him, it would cheer him up to know he has a replacement."

"Sure!" Parley said, but the cheer in her voice wavered. "Hey, Carver? We're sure Donlan's genius enough to fix Robbie up, right?"

Annie gave her the same steady, steadying smile that she'd given Shadow. "When Kat was introduced to Robot, his body had been turned into a box of paper clips. She's the one who gave him the design he has today, and I'm positive she'll get him on his feet in no time."

Parley nodded. "Okay then. All right, I'm off to get the two of you some clothes." Bip! She disappeared.

"Robot also really likes his current design," Shadow murmured. "I hope that won't have to change..." Robot loved to run so much, and if Kat had to make all-new parts for him, it would mean testing and recalibrating. If that took a long time he'd start to feel awkward about being around her and get even more polite and shy, and it was difficult to distract him from that particular discomfort.

It was going to be really, really difficult from now on, like this, even when Robot had been repaired... Keeping Robot company was going to be so weird. How was he supposed to match all that running and jumping? He couldn't run with him!

He was going to have to learn. But Annie could help with that too, surely - she walked and ran as much as any of the other people, and she was friends with _Ysengrin_ , legendary for knowing all about moving, moving fast, and moving faster until he caught and crushed whoever he was after. Shadow would be like Ysengrin; like Annie; like Robot. He'd move like the other people did, humans, animals, the lot of them. Exactly the same.

"Close your eyes!"

Annie did it immediately, and Shadow put his hands on hers. "Wait, why--" Annie began.

"Please! Close them!"

Her skin really was pretty awesome, Shadow found as he took hold of her hands and put them over her closed eyes. Not just warm, but he could make it move with his own skin and fingers and flesh even with just a touch, putting in shallow dents that went away on their own as he held her hands in place. Then he peeled her fingers away carefully. "In the shadow air, when it helps you walk upright, any one of the glass-eyed people can look every one of the other people in the eye _first_. That's one of the big deal things about the story! You can get right up to their level and you don't need to wait until anyone's standing over you or to wave to get their attention or have the light move!"

A big, blue eye blinked open, and then the other one. Deep-eyed: that was the name the shadow people gave to the other peoples of the world, because even when they weren't human they shared that colourfulness and those dark centres. He saw the circle of shadow in Annie's eye shrink, the way it usually happened when one of the other folk looked right at you. Shadow had chosen to look at Annie, and Annie - well, she saw him, of course. But it was different now.

"I didn't think you minded saying a little 'hey, Annie'," she said, but then she winked and he just laughed. Andrew happily let him do the same thing when Shadow turned to him, and Parley finally smiled when she came back and he did the same to her as they started helping him dress; she saw him in the way that all the deep-eyed people could see each other, and just seeing him made her grin.

Deep-eyed people made the shadows in their eyes go smaller in order to stay safe, he remembered, so there wouldn't be space for glass-eyed people to find a way in and ride their minds. It might be true. It might be another story. The way the day was turning out, it might be both. He hadn't thought about those stories in a long time; since Robot had been ridden back over the bridge and into the Court, he hadn't liked to think of anyone as 'deep-eyed', and how so many friends of his friends talked about slipping into those depths. He looked at Renard, still sitting near the wall - already looking at him, quiet and alert - and didn't ask to play the little game with him.

The shadow people are jealous: of humans, and of all deep-eyed folk. The old tales get pretty clear about that! And messy about it. Some shadow people with long memories told of how Ysengrin had once called up all his strength and wildness to find a way to get his own teeth into shadows, and he'd torn through them until they swore to stop causing trouble by riding in the minds of the inhabitants of the Forest. No other people had been so clearly forgotten by their creator, and so changed by that fact. They loved and understood each other, were silent and unseen to all the rest, and were vicious to the other people because of it.

Especially the people of the Court. Shadow wasn't jealous and mean, most of the shadow people he'd known weren't, and if Ysengrin had needed to teach them all a lesson it must have worked, because there had been a lot of different friendships and very little mind-riding in the Forest - but the shadow people did hate the Court and everyone in it.

"I still feel a little weird," Shadow said. He looked up at Annie, Parley, and Andrew. They were still friends. It wasn't like he'd felt like he was getting one over them because of being able to make them see him, or to be able to make them move how he wanted to, but... "Will you take me to the workshop where Robot and Kat are? I want to see how Robot's doing."

"No prob, kid!" Parley said. "I'm dying to check on him myself. And you can give him his hoodie, yeah?" She gripped his hands tightly.

"Wait, wait!" Annie waved her hands. "Shadow, I think we should practice walking?"

"That could take all day, Carver, it's not like it's easy for humans to learn for the first time."

"Even you're not so impatient that it only took you a day," Andrew said with a smile, and she took one of her hands away to put on her hip and gave him an unimpressed look. Then she snorted and held her hand out to him -- "Come on, Smitface."

"It is quite a distance to the workshop..." Annie said, thinking it over.

"We can go part of the way there, and then learn to walk the rest of the way."

"That should be all right. It's in a quiet enough area. Maybe you can take us to around block B of that one mini-filtration plant, uh, number 17? I know a shortcut from there."

Walking took a long time. It was important, and he wanted to get better at it! But it was a long time. Robot had kept asking if Shadow was okay, which meant he was really worried, or he thought that his sensors might be damaged and weren't giving reliable information. The cut hadn't been anywhere near his CPU, but what if a jolt had knocked something loose? What if Coyote's tooth did more than he'd said it would, especially against a Court robot?

Kat would have fetched them. If things were only a little bit wrong, she would still send a message with a robot. Shadow concentrated on walking. His feet kept sticking to the ground too long, and he had to keep his trailing trouser legs tucked under them because it made it a little easier to convince himself to lift his feet up into the air.

When he let go of Annie's hands, Renard came to walk beside him. "You can lean against me when you have trouble with your balance," he said, and Shadow gratefully took him up on it. He couldn't be too suspicious of Shadow, then.

Renard took Shadow's weight easily. "This is very strange," he said. "What are you now, child? Little shadow man of the shadow men ... I think you should remember, at least, that you're not alone."

Shadow grinned at him. "Thank you! You guys are all great," he added, loud enough for all of them to hear, and then gave a giggle as his fingers dug into the ruff of hair at Renard's neck. "And oh, wow..."

"You think my fur is awesome?" Renard guessed. Very accurately.

"So awesome! And walking's so hard but it's awesome too!"

Andrew laughed. "I think you're getting a little high on feeling."

It's the air, it's the warmth, it's how here I am, _it's so natural_. Shadow just laughed with him and didn't say any of it. The shadow people had all once walked upright. It must always have been in him to be able to learn how to be this way. It was easy!

And it was okay as long as it was him. He wouldn't hurt anyone, so as long as no one back in the Forest heard about this, it would be okay...

"We're almost there, right?" he asked, squinting at the workshop building. He was pretty sure it was the workshop building. Yeah, if looked like that when he was riding on the level of Robot's chest.

He could go pretty fast, leaning on Renard, and it felt like it took almost no time at all to reach the workshop. What felt like it took a long time was letting Annie go ahead to check with Kat if it was okay to go into the main part of the workshop. He watched her look inside, wait, nod, and then turn to wave him closer.

Robot hugging him was the first thing since Coyote's tooth had fallen that Shadow knew exactly what it meant.

The shadow people melt together easily, sometimes separating changed from how they were before. The shadow people find that this is good, and easy, and makes sense; there's already so much they share, and sharing more didn't make too much of a difference. So Shadow recognised the feeling when Robot hugged him: we're the same, and we love the same way, and we will be together the same way. And Shadow didn't even hug him back! It was still there, that obvious knowledge of sharing the same sadness and happiness, standing aside from other people in the same way, standing together because it's so good, so easy.

The unfair thing was that it was also really weird. How was he so sure of this? Robot had always liked him, so why did it feel like it was a different kind of like now? This tingling feeling throughout him couldn't be right! Did Robot really finally notice something except helping out in the Court and worshipping with the other robots? Did everybody have to be watching?

"You guys!" Parley wailed, hugging them both.

"Oh - ah--" Robot didn't know what to say. Shadow would have hugged her back but she had a good enough grip that it kept him still. When she did go to fight the Ghost of the Annan Waters, he was pretty sure it was going to be spectacular.

"It's really okay. C'mon, you got me a gift." He tugged his hood back over his head, but she just sniffed heavily. "And taught me to walk, and got me halfway here..."

"You are the _best_ , kid. The best and the chipperest."

"Yes," Robot said quietly to him.

That would be a good thing to answer with a hug, too, but they were still in Parley's clinch - and besides, he thought he might explode if he did hug Robot. So he just gave Parley a few more reassurances, until Kat suggested everyone leave Robot and Shadow alone so they could get used to themselves. One of Shadow's hands had been in Robot's the whole time, trailing back like it was rooting him to Robot's shadow.

He was still kind of thinking about all the times Robot, preaching about Kat and how she was a beautiful angel, looked over him like other folk so often did with the glass-eyed folk. He was still going to hold that metal hand back, though, because doing that made him feel as terrible and fizz-blessed as that little yellow sweet had, and it was terrible only because it was a strange kind of absolutely awesome.

"We can bring you more food," Annie called from by the door, looking like she felt more anxious the further she got.

"It's all right. If Shadow needs food now..." Robot looked to him for confirmation, a movement Shadow saw from the edge of his vision, and he nodded in reply. "I will be able to take care of that. It's so strange..."

"Thanks, Kat," Shadow said. "For helping Robot and ... everything." He was trying not to be obvious about the way she was ushering everyone out.

"We are so catching up later!" Kat called back, and everyone left with lots of waving and lolling tongues and relief.

Robot turned to him when the door closed and it was dark, so Shadow gave him the respect of looking back. He didn't recognise the way the lights blinked on Robot's face. "Did Kat have to make any big changes to this body?" Shadow asked. "I know you thought the other one was awesome!"

"I think you're awesome."

"Um, I just mean! You really loved it, and it took a while to make it that way and calibrate everything just right..."

"I really love you."

"Okay, I can't pretend I didn't hear that," Shadow said, smiling and ashamed of himself, looking down because there was so much directness he could take, and also so that he could look at the hands cupping his.

"I would be grateful if you didn't. I'd really prefer not to love you from afar, Shadow."

The Court robots were so weird about this kind of thing.

"In fact, I would very much prefer to keep you company, as much as or more than I have since we became friends. You ... are you all right? This is very strange. But I still love you!"

He squeezed Robot's hand. He got all wobbly again when Robot actually squeezed back. Being able to stuff and even people was amazing. Moving Robot was making him feel like he should lie down on the ground and pretend to be flat again, because it might be the only way to feel stable.

"I'm all right," he said. He wondered if he should also use both hands to hold Robot's too, and then he did because there was no reason to bother with 'should' when he really wanted to.

"It seemed likely that you would be changed. I thought about it as I lay waiting here, thinking about seeing you again. You would be changed, and it was a very big change, so everything else would change for you. The possibility of going back to your family was further away than ever, and you might feel so alone..."

Shadow swung his arms so Robot's arms would swing too. They were all tangled up, in presence and movement; because Robot wanted to be, and because it was exactly the way Shadow wanted to be. "I was okay. It's really weird how easy this was to get used to, and I actually thought... almost the whole time, I was thinking that you'd be with me like always, and that was exactly what I wanted. So you don't have to bring me flowers or anything," he said. "Um, especially flowers. They might have some animals with them, fairies or bugs, that could take news about me back to the Forest. That could bring trouble."

"Bringing gifts and tokens is a standard phase of courtship or sign of respect," Robot said, putting his other hand on Shadow's. "Do you agree that we are past courtship? In my assessment, if you love me too, we are ... together."

"I could bring you stuff, if you want. But yeah! I want to be together. If we're already together, that's the best."

"Ah! I think I understand what you mean." Robot nearly knocked him down flat with a hug, and they ended up in a pile on the floor, cuddled together so that they melted as close to the way shadow people did as they could get.

"Unless you would like to eat first?" Robot asked.

Shadow squeaked. He tried again, and said, "I think I should take it easy with how many things I feel at one time!"

Robot moved to arrange them more comfortably for Shadow's sake. It actually felt surprisingly good to be down on the ground, in the dark, even if the floor was probably pretty cold to be sitting on despite the fabric of the trousers and the jumper. It was familiar.

And sitting like this with Robot _was awesome_. Even if he was cold, he still felt like he might be warm for the rest of whatever his weird life was going to be. 

"We're going to have to make plans," Shadow whispered. It was meant to be serious, but he found himself grinning at the realisation that he was already good at messing around with his voice, and because being like this with Robot made him want to smile. "Annie already said she thinks there's someone who could help me live ... an upright life, here at the Court. Jones."

"Jones ... is acceptable," Robot said. "Her records are impeccable. She is a neutral party, however, and not aligned to the Court... I am not meant to truly trust her. But that might mean she is a better choice for you to approach for help than most other inhabitants of the Court. She _is_ supposed to be safe. I'll make sure of it."

Shadow felt kind of bad for not looking Robot in the face at all because of their positions, but they used to have lots of conversations without needing to do so, with Shadow pooling in Robot's hood and Robot speaking a little louder to be heard over the wind of his running. "I'm glad you have those databases," he said. "Thanks, Robot."

"Shadow? Are you more vulnerable now? I suspect that you are. Not only the humans of the Court will question you, and what you are. And ... where you belong."

"But we've made lots of friends among the robots, haven't we?"

"You will you be perceived as a new quantity to be reassessed. Individual robots, with their individual purposes, will take different variables into account and make different decisions. That frightens me."

Shadow snuggled closer to him, making sounds kind of like _no_ , but he couldn't really deny it. He just didn't want Robot to be scared.

"You will have to get used to many new things, and your body has changed so much." Robot scratched against the stone as he moved to hug Shadow tighter. It wasn't warm, but it felt almost the same. "I believe you now have vulnerabilities more like a human's."

"I'm going to ask Kat to do some tests on me like she does for you. Annie did a great job, but from watching the way Kat helps you, I think she might also be able to tell me some useful stuff? It might just end up being things I don't understand, though."

"I will help you understand if you need it. And I will keep you safe."

"You're treating me like I'm more human..."

"You are."

"But I don't want you just to be helpful to me, or do devotions or dedicate subroutines to thinking about me, or anything. I still want to do stuff like go exploring, and find all the lonely robots with weird jobs and hang out with them, and see if we can find any more of those old bits of the Forest left around here, and talk and share secrets and argue and play our games and stuff..."

"We must!" Robot said urgently. "That is what I was thinking about, when I realised you'd been hurt and I couldn't help. You require lots of company and you like mine, and I want you to have my company, not just my help. It is a strange way to love - for a robot - and you must remind me, Shadow."

"I will. I bet it'll be easy! Once I have the hang of walking properly. I'm going to learn fast, okay?"

"I will carry you until then. You are light."

Shadow thought he should make the confession to Robot that he hadn't been able to make to the others, though Renard might have understood. "It's actually pretty easy to learn how to use this body. And before, I got carried away, and I was almost mean like other glass-eyed people would have been. Well, not really." Shadow thought over his own excitement again. "I don't want to hurt our friends! Or anyone! But I think I reacted exactly like another glass-eyed person would have, and they would hate all my friends here, and... It's all weird."

"But that is not who we are. If I adore you, it will be in another way than what a robot is used to. And if you have to choose who to be, you must choose to be ... Shadow. Because my friend Shadow makes good choices."

"Hey! That's, uh ... a tautological argument!" Shadow's smile started to come back. "Thank you for the joke."

"Oh! I forgot that tautological arguments are not a funny joke to everyone..."

"I've spent enough time with robots to know when you're making a joke anyway!" He cuddled closer to Robot, and felt his form give way and stretch a little, shadow-like. "Okay. Okay, that sounds good to me.

"I won't be like the other shadow-people. I know I won't! And I'll think about what happens if the others find out about me, because I don't want them hurting anyone. And I'll have to lie a little to whoever Annie introduces me to that's supposed to keep me safe in the Court. Can you lie to Jones?"

"You should take care of that. I'm still not good at it."

"It's a Forest specialty," Shadow said reassuringly. "We're going to have to make all kinds of plans, Robot. Maybe you won't even have time to think about protecting me, so long as we're thinking about what happens if Annie's plan to help me doesn't work, or the Forest finds out what Coyote's tooth can do."

"Yes." Robot paused for a heartbeat (did Shadow have a heart, now, like so many of the deep-eyed people?), and when he spoke again, his voice sounded a little like it did when he preached. "We are both unique now. We must take our time to think about the meaning of it."

"It means a _lot_ of things, Robot. It's not the answer to any one thing!"

There was a silence, and then the bottom light on Robot's face politely started blinking yellow to show data was being processed and it was going to take a little while to get an answer out of him. "You, that's, oh--" Robot said finally, "you make a lot of sense. That is a very pertinent point, and easy to overlook."

"Sheesh. _You_ ," Shadow said. He squirmed a little to free up an arm for putting around Robot's waist.

"You might not feel like it any longer, or all the time, Shadow, but you are a part of me."

"Thanks for letting me be." This close, he could feel a little of the old, familiar vibration he used to feel from Robot, and Shadow sighed and settled in.

In coming days and nights, a lot of people would tell Shadow that he was unique. He thought that he was probably old in a strange way; he was a glass-eyed man when there weren't really any more of them. Stories were told about them, but they didn't have stories of their own anymore.

He wasn't unique, either. That would have been awful, for one of the shadow people. He was one of two - and it was enough. More than enough.


End file.
